Category: Professional Development

Gender

Gender is one topic I have learned a lot about in the last year, but remain far from an expert in. This is obviously a controversial topic for some, due to politicisation and other issues, indeed the New Statesman podcast did a good job recently of covering the gender care report and what the implications may be for UK politics. However, given I recently spoke publicly about some of my work related to gender, I thought I would reflect here too.

Work in the last year or so

So what have I been doing:

  1. I was invited to help a group of experts on gender develop an elearning module on gender-related issues in my employer’s particular context. This included working with a number of very inspiring/informative subject matter experts.
  2. I have been involved in various gender related sessions such as webinars.
  3. Recently I was asked to replace a colleague at a UN event that covered gender topics.
  4. Updating the online learning from point 1 to be future ready.

A big issue for me?

Well, I would say, in part, that I have been fairly oblivious to some issues in this space. Perhaps due to my background, including working for/with lots of great female leaders and team mates, I have not experienced some of the issues. Therefore, I can appreciate I have been “gender blind” to some of the experiences of others. This is, of course, at the same time as knowing that there would be other industries than my own where traditional gender balance has led to reduced opportunities, sexism (in both directions), etc.

One route to consider gender is part of wider DEI, indeed perhaps gender has fallen down the order of importance for some groups given wider DEI issues (I would say this is the case in the world of L&D where talent/learning teams have often had DEI responsibilities added to their roles), climate change, supply chain crisis and other issues.

Another recent find that got me thinking was this video from Mattel (albeit it is 5 years old):

Now this is very powerful and it’s clever from a marketing perspective considering Barbie toys would have been seen as the ultimate “girly” toy when I was a kid.

Role models

The message of needing to see role models is an interesting one. As with most topics, we comprehend via the lens of our existing knowledge. My personal take on this, therefore, is that identifying role models undoubtedly does play a part in childhood. In my case, just as I was being bullied as a teenager (for me the “othering” was being ginger) Chris Evans burst into stardom and through the Big Breakfast, TFI Friday, “Ginger Media Group”, etc. will have (unconsciously – as I wasn’t that self-aware) undoubtedly had an impact on me in thinking that there was no barrier to red-heads being successful. Indeed, reflecting on this now, you could argue the likes of Karen Gillan have really pushed it to another level and I would hope ginger kids today have a much easier time. Should only a ginger call another ginger ginger?

Data over personal experience

A lot of the above is really limited to personal experience and perhaps it is an issue/topic so rife for anecdote that gender becomes difficult to treat as seriously as it should be. Therefore it is interesting to consider that the World Economic Forum estimated it would take 99.5 years to close the gender gap in 2019. By 2023, the time to achieve gender equality had risen to 131 years. How robust these numbers are is surely debatable but the UN’s view that there is “backsliding” on gender is something for everyone to consider.

Conclusion

Anyway, lots to think about, lots to keep improving in my own practice, lots to keep learning and, dear readers, do feel free to help me with that.

The conclusion of some of the work I have assisted with is below which, you would hope, not many people would disagree with:

What is to be avoided is gender blindness, which is the failure to consider the implications of the physical and/or social differences between gender.

So if AI is “the new electricity” – why am I not more excited?

On a recent podcast, Donald H Taylor was the latest person I have heard say AI is comparable to electricity in its potential to revolutionize the world. The first time I had heard this kind of idea was back at an event in May 2022.

If we compare this industrial revolution (4.0/5.0 or whatever you want to call it) with how amazing it must have been to first see a building lit up with electricity why do I feel underwhelmed? This is, perhaps, as (like industrial revolution 1.0 and 2.0) there has been a long lead in – for example, we have already seen huge benefits from computers and this feels (to me) like a natural next step forward. Indeed AI has already been revolutionizing certain industries/professions like medical imagery for a while. To an extent I fear that the current buzz is really that this period of automation/robotisation is coming for the likes of lawyers, teachers, software engineers and journalists so there is a lot more noise on the internet and in the wider media. For example, if we go back to 1985 people experiencing “hard times” (including having their jobs taken by computers) had their own supporters, including “The American Dream”, Dusty Rhodes:

Any excuse to bring wrestling into things – but it is only 3 minutes 🙂

This all said, when “web 2.0” burst onto the scene I was wildly interested, trying out a multitude of tools, listening to podcasts to find more, etc etc. So what is different? Well, a few things:

  1. I am older and more grizzled. In learning we have, since 2.0, seen the rise of mobile devices and other tech which has promised much but actually impacted the industry and day-to-day work in relatively limited ways. I totally agree with the general opinion that AI is more transformative than this but I have become cynical about tech buzz.
  2. Web 2 offered something very real, particularly for my career and ways of working, through blogs, wikis, virtual classrooms, social media and all the other tools that were given the label we were seeing increased global connectivity of people via the web. Web 2 was ultimately, for me, about web interactivity moving beyond static pages, discussion boards and chat forums to one where virtually any face-to-face interaction could be done online. The covid pandemic may have been a late push to many to use such tools but for those of us investigating them in c.2006 it was very exciting (even if the 2.0 term itself is said to come from 1999).
  3. GenAI is too often just a reflection of the internet. Much has been said and written about the issues with GenAI based on the data sets and attempts such as Google’s to add diversity in where the data set lacks it. Ultimately, for learning teams/industry, it clearly has advantages, e.g. for writing content on generic topics, helping with marking/marketing, etc but less helpful on the kind of detailed technical topics many company L&D teams are working with (i.e. the propriety information and USPs of their organizations). Private AIs that use a greater % of the source material over a central internet-powered data set will come (some are already here) but I’ve not really seen them work as designed/sold – yet (readers – let me know in the comments what/who I am missing in relation to actually powerful tools here). As for image tools their quality seems to vary enormously so that market feels like it needs some serious culling so most of us end up using one or two tools from a bigger field.

Meanwhile it’s good to see that research, news, blogs, etc are considering the evident issues. For example, what you can see from the free access to this article sounds good in considering Gen AI implications for Human Resource Management. Figure 1 in that article being a nice summary of where I would imagine most organizations either are or think they need to be in considering their future – if I can further summarize, deciding on the balance of people vs tech in the future is something for us all to think about. However, that is something as old, if not older, as industrial revolution 1.0.

Reflections on Change Management practitioner status

Anyone working in learning is working with change – it is directly related to how we re/upskill, how we change behaviours, how we decide what combination of solutions will lead to performance improvement, etc etc.

We also know that training alone is rarely the solution. This has contributed in part to the preference for “learning and development”, in that people need to learn and develop over time. More fundamentally models like Performance Consulting help us clarify with stakeholders if we are talking about knowledge, information, skill, motivation or environmental challenges. Yet when we do deliver learning solutions the industry often struggles with evaluation to demonstrate impact and value. This often leads to arguments for learning needing a “seat at the table” and other such discussions that, in my opinion, too often ignore the fact IT, marketing, finance and every other teams would likely say the same.

On option for more strategic learning has always been to ensure learning team time is closely aligned to strategic initiatives. However, the traditional challenge of learning needs being thrown “over the fence” or learning teams being “order takers” for courses has suggested that, for many, the experience has been that they are too remote from decision making. I would presume most people will have experienced a mix of this in their learning careers, certainly I have at times been an “order taker” but often when the intention is a more holistic curriculum. At other times learning programmes have been central to projects, organisational development and other strategic, business critical planning. At the same time many of us will have seen different change management approaches – one of the most common, at least in reference if not application being Prosci/ADKAR.

It is with this background that I recently completed a three day programme (via Zoom) to achieve my Prosci® Change Practitioner Certification.

As expected, the course can only go so far in building competency with this methodology. However, there is an impressive set of resources available via the Prosci portal during and after the event. This includes online and offline options for completing the various assessments, plans and other components that make up the methodology. The core tenant of the model being that change management is about the “people side of change” and part of the course was discussing how CM should interact with project management (PM). Having previously completed, and facilitated, various project management training initiatives over the years, the Prosci programme did bring provide a very detailed and potentially powerful way to focus on the CM/people side. Ultimately every organisation really needs such a model – the question is if you want to go “all in” and adopt something as robust, research-based and multifaceted as Prosci’s 3 stage method.

Having completed the programme I went back to my old P30 (2013 edition!) manual and, to be fair, the “people side” is limited. Therefore, the fundamental justification for combining CM to PM (at least with these very popular methodologies) is justified.

For anyone wanting to do the certification themselves, I would certainly recommend it. 3 days was a lot, via Zoom it could have perhaps been done over 5 days but logistics (of course) always impact on instructional design. As is often the way a lot of the interesting parts came from the interaction with others (both facilitator and participants) and sharing of experience but the Prosci team clearly have a structured approach for their (franchise?) trainers that ensures some consistency.

Overall, good to have formal training in a method I have long been familiar of – the challenge now, as with all training, is to apply the learning and not revert to bad practice(s).

Ren’Py for leadership training

Back in June 2021 (3 years ago, really?!?) I wrote about RenPy as a platform for choice-driven branching gaming. Since then I have played around a few times with an idea for potentially developing a game to make leaders reflect on their personal approaches.

I had not really got going with this at all. So, as it is 2024, I asked Chat GPT (3.5) for a start.

Write me a renpy game about leadership in corporate environments

Me to ChatGPT

Even this simple prompt delivered 97 lines of code. So here we go, I might just have to try and give this a go!

If I manage to find some time – some more work on this might follow, hopefully not in 3 years!

Forbes: Why Women Leaders Are Leaving Their Jobs At Record Rates

One New Year’s resolution (for me) was to try and blog more as I am conscious I am being less reflective on things I read, webinars I attend, podcasts I listen to, etc. We will see over the coming months if I manage to keep the blogging up or not!

With International Women’s Day not far away, it was interesting to see this article from Forbes.

Obviously, I am at risk of being shouted down here but, in my opinion, there are a few things in this article I thought I would reflect on:

  • “leave their jobs to get their needs met” and an increasing gap between men and women – are differences between men and women’s needs still so pronounced?
  • “the economic and personal pressure is higher on women than ever before” – this sounds like a big claim but it may be the case – see my thoughts in the paragraph below*
  • “burnout as the main reason” – again, is this not a universal issue? What is happening in corporate America!?
  • “harassment and microaggressions” perhaps answers the question in the last bullet along with “lack of flexibility” and “limited advancement opportunities”. All of these reasons can, of course, be issues for groups beyond women and the suggestions listed – such as “flexible hours” and hybrid work really should be the minimal for most leadership roles in a modern environment.

*Ultimately the issue for all households (whatever the gender) is that we have gone from a situation where many households could get by on one salary (my mum, for example, missed several years of work including a spell of around only 0.2FTE and later my dad was made redundant and had years of part-time work before retirement) to most families needing two FTE salaries to get by. This leads to political issues – for example, whilst President Biden might expect a good run into the election based on a (relative to other countries) strong economic position we are instead in the situation where memes like the below are rife.

The reality, of course, was very different for many people. However, the point about purchasing power of the masses versus the “1%” is clearly a major issue in many countries. Where women are being expected to fulfil traditional roles alone plus economic pressure then clearly there will be severe “economic and personal” pressure (as mentioned in the article – see bullets above).

The conclusion of the Forbes article includes “if companies want to retain valuable talent, they need to create an equitable workplace where women can thrive”. I think it is fair to say we can simply rewrite that as “if companies want to retain valuable talent, they need to create an equitable workplace where everyone can thrive”.